The Lead

The Holiday season is over and according to the IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark, consumers didn’t just open their wallets, they opened their phones— Mobile sales, whether through a smartphone or a tablet, accounted for over 22 percent of all online sales for the 2014 holiday season.

Early reports are mostly saying that the app is great, but companies are still catching up to learn the technology. It will get better with time and as people begin to adopt the technology. It’s only been a few days and hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

In theory, mobile-payment services such as Google Wallet are easy to use. You simply download an app and enter your card information. With Apple Pay, you can even snap a picture of the card or use the one you already use with Apple's iTunes.

Online retailers are trying to harness this accelerating mobile trend to capture a huge growth opportunity. But to do so, they must engage buyers with desired services and content at the precise moment of need. That’s causing more “e-tailers” to deploy...

Called Amazon Local Register, the payment solution consists of a secure card reader and mobile app that will allow local businesses to accept credit and debit cards from a smartphone or tablet and keep track of their business. Amazon Local Registers sees the online retailers directly competing with payment providers like PayPal, Square and others.

Under the agreement, EnStream will leverage BlackBerry’s infrastructure to enable financial institutions, including Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank Group, CIBC and Desjardins, and mobile operators to securely provision sensitive payment card credentials into any smartphone capable of near field communication (NFC).

The company conducted a pilot produce where thousands of sellers used Square Capital to buy equipment and inventory, hire more employees, and add new stores. Many neighborhood businesses with access to alternative funding sources chose Square Capital for the simple and fast process.

Check has a mobile app that automates and consolidates the bill-pay process all in one place, which it says reduces complexity for consumers. Check customers can monitor bills and accounts, receive alerts when bills are due or funds are low, and pay bills automatically.

The mobile wallet is an idea that seems to eternally be 12 to 18 months out, but not for lack of interest. According to a recent Yankee Group report, fully two-third of consumers surveyed are interested in mobile wallets. However, just 16 percent of mobile device owners have used their phone to make an in-store payment in the past three months.

Many people use their smartphones to watch video, play games and wake them up in the morning. Some even use them to generate digital boarding passes to fly. So why not use phones to buy stuff at retail stores as well? A variety of mobile wallet systems store credit or debit card information on phones in encrypted form...

The introduction of any new technology is almost always fraught with quirks and rough edges. When VHS and BetaMax first came out, snarled tape and long rewind times were to be expected. When CDs were first released, skipping on the new players was par for the course. Such is the case with mobile payments.

T-Mobile Wednesday announced a new side project with the launch of a personal finance and mobile payments service. The company calls the new project Mobile Money by T-Mobile. The service includes a combination of smartphone money management applications designed for use with a re-loadable T-Mobile Visa Prepaid Card.

Sitting around at home over the holidays is no longer about playing pinochle with Aunt Gertie. People now have smartphones, and a bevy of time-killing apps installed on them to while away the hours.App analytics firm Flurry today released...

What would a Black Friday report be if it didn't compare iOS and Android? According to IBM's Black Friday Benchmark report, Apple iOS traffic reached 28.2 percent of all online traffic, compared to 11.4 percent for Android, and iOS sales reached 18.1 percent of all online sales, compared to 3.5 percent for Android.

Groupon Inc. whittled its losses during the third quarter, but weak revenue growth underscored the challenges facing the online daily deal service as it tries to morph into a more comprehensive destination for Internet bargain hunters. As part of its expansion efforts, Groupon announced Thursday...

As consumers flock to the mobile web en masse over the next few months, not only will companies — particularly those in online retail and travel — experience more mobile web traffic, but traffic spikes will also become more unpredictable.

Isis and Jamba Juice have announced a tasty partnership to jumpstart usage of Isis’s NFC Mobile Wallet: one million free smoothies. "Jamba Juice is committed to supporting new and existing customers in an ultra-mobile retail world," Jamba Juice CEO James White said in a statement.